A woman who crashed her car off a bridge in Urbana, Illinois, on September 3rd, 2019, pled guilty to aggravated driving under the influence in a Champaign County Circuit Court. Ashia Marshall, 22, took her plea before Judge Ronda Holliman on Thursday, June 11th.
According to the Assistant State Attorney Brooke Hinman, the Champaign resident, who resides in the 1400-block of Kenwood Road, would receive her sentence on August 2nd. A summary of the facts by the prosecutor revealed that Marshall drove through a construction barricade on Bradley Bridge at the point where it was getting rebuilt over Interstate 57.
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The suspect’s Jeep vaulted down the highway embankment to the west side of the interstate, where a concrete barrier kept it from entering the southbound lanes of traffic. Marshall and her passengers, Maurice Conley, 44, and Robert Spears, 36, were wearing seat belts, which saved their lives.
However, the Illinois State Police said in the accident report that Conley suffered a broken leg, cut tongue, broken nose, and cervical strain. Spears sustained chest injuries, a collapsed lung, and a damaged kidney.
Marshall initially said that she did not see signs relating to the construction, but state troopers determined she was driving under the influence at the time. A blood test showed that the suspect had a BAC level of .225, almost three times above the legal limit.
The woman was placed in jail afterward but came out on recognizance. On December 6th, the police rearrested her after another DUI accident, where she struck and injured a 31-year-old Urbana woman. Hinman dropped an aggravated DUI charge for the second offense after Marshall pled guilty and agreed for a ten-year prison sentence instead of twelve.
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